I'm looking for scholarship that suggests a positive relationship between high political sophistication and high socioeconomic status. Causal inferences will be great.
The nearest classic that I can think of is Philip Converse's 1964 essay, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." It is not a perfect fit, but the idea is that a tiny minority of the US electorate, about 3.5%, are ideologues who are the most sophisticated, whereas the remainder gets less and less sophisticated (as one presumably goes down the social ladder). That's the implication anyway: the tone is that the closer you get to the street, the dumber voters get. Because he does not speak directly to SES, you may have an opening here for your own work. Be sure to check the most recent journal articles that cite this piece, and you will find the strongest and most up-to-date version of the argument. Good luck!
Thanks I'll revisit Converse's essay. I'm not sure if he related the ideologues with economic status.
Also suggest Jan Pakulksi who wrote a book many years ago pointing out that the vast majority of national politicians (both Liberal and Labor Parties) in Australia went to elite private high schools - http://www.utas.edu.au/social-sciences/people/sociolology-and-sw-profiles/Jan-Pakulski (this is still true today)
Please see the Harvard Kennedy School of Government paper by Domingo T. Sauceda delivered at the Dubai conference in November 2006.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Political Science